3.17.2006

Roger P. Clemens-Manning and why Troy Polamalu is Mexican

I feel like I'm an Indianapolis Colt. I feel like Marvin Harrison or Reggie Wayne. I feel the powers that be are doing everything to let us win. Bud Selig is a sham artist. So is Paul Tagliabue. The World Baseball Classic, which is surprisingly drawing interest from Americans, lost the team hailing from the red, white and blue yesterday. In case you didn't watch yesterday, the Mexican hitter, Mario Valenzuela, smacked a ball off of the right field foul pole. The ball hit the yellow pole clearly, a good five feet above right fielder Vernon Wells' head. The ball was ruled a ground rule double. Crew chief Bob Davidson (if you don't remember him from another incident, I'll explain later), who made the call, refused to change it despite the fact that it was obviously a homer. The Mexicans argued to no avail. Although Roger Clemens caught a break there, he is too incompetent to take advantage of anything. The runner scored on a single by Jorge Cantu. This missed call by Davidson reminded me of when the USA snagged a run from Japan's grasp by overturning a safe call on a sacrifice fly. This call, oddly enough, was overturned by Davidson. This officiating snafu took me back to Sunday, January 15. Steelers-Colts. Fourth quarter. Troy Polamalu clearly picked Peyton Manning. It was ruled an incomplete pass. Although Mike Vanderjagt wound up missing the field goal that would have made the missed call worth something and the Steelers won, Joey Porter still felt the need to speak. He accused the NFL of cheating the Steelers. I think he was right. And now, I'm Brandon Stokley and Roger Peyton Clemens-Manning still couldn't win it. He got the gift. So did Peyton. The unfortunate truth is that the WBC is rigged. The drug testing is rigged. The officiating is a sham. And somehow, Roger couldn't dominate a lineup whose biggest threat was Jorge Cantu and the Americans couldn't hit Oliver Perez, Francisco Campos, Edgar Gonzalez, Ricardo Rincon, Oscar Villareal, Jorge De La Rosa, Luis Ayala or David Cortes. These players are hardly the cream of the crop in the Major Leagues. So, while the USA suffers its second major defeat in international sports in as many months, take it with a grain of salt. At least we can sleep knowing it was rigged in our favor.

A little SNY update:I tuned in from my Connecticut home base to be foiled by some of the worst sounds I've ever heard. And I've heard a Celine Dion song before. The network, first, was on the wrong channel. Comcast told me it would be on Channel 78; it turned out to be on Channel 5. The video quality was shoddy, the audio was bad, and I missed all of the Curtis Martin interview during Daily News Live. Also, the Mike Schmidt interview was poorly edited, especially for a "live" show. It was obviously not live. The game was okay. I liked Ron Darling in the studio. I liked Gary and Keith's chemistry, and, despite the poor audio and video quality, I have bright hopes for the network and I'll be flipping back and forth between UConn-Albany and Dodgers-Mets tonight. See you then.

3 comments:

I'm in sync with you on this one. I feel the best thing about us losing the WBC is that the umpires can now feel free to stop cheating. They've got no horse in this race anymore, and we can move on and see some untainted baseball.

The teams that advanced seem to be the ones that took the whole thing more seriously than the kind of exhibition cakewalk the US seemed to think it was. These teams are playing for blood and leaving it all out on the field. I am really looking forward to the semi's tomorrow, I was hoping Cuba would make it this far. I'm hoping for a Cuba/Korea final now. Korea is a juggernaut of tight defense and now has to be considered the favorite since they are undeafeated. I think Cuba might be outmatched by the DR, but I do hope they pull off an upset.

I agree totally. The Cuban team, while arguably not as talented as others, played together. The USA team was much more an all-star team, where they stuck people at whatever position they wanted (Michael Young at 2B, Vernon Wells and Johnny Damon in the corner outfield spots). And there's nothing like the Koreans, who were granted exemptions from their compulsory military service after beating Japan this week. Crazy stuff.